GREENHUT: Even Brown said no to latest cop-union scam

SACRAMENTO ---- If California voters grant the state government the massive income-tax and sales-tax increases that Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative Democrats have been demanding via November's Proposition 30, those same officials will quickly squander the money by shoveling even more benefits to those already well-compensated government workers.

For evidence, pay close attention to a police- and firefighter-union enrichment scam that came within a whisker of becoming law.

Even in its watered-down form, AB 2451 would have opened the state's cities and municipalities to an endless amount of liabilities for the families of deceased police and firefighters. The legislation also revealed the surreptitious way benefits are expanded in California, as unions work the system to quietly gain significant compensation hikes. It proves that legislators have in no way reformed their free-spending ways, despite a veto.

In the private sector, employees typically receive injury and death benefits through insurance policies, and such benefits are linked to work performed on the job. In "public safety" jobs in the public sector, taxpayers foot the bill for disability and death benefits. Politicians ---- always currying favor with the unions that represent police, firefighters and prison guards ---- continually expand the categories of illness that are presumed to be caused by job-related injuries.

So if a retired firefighter or cop gets heart disease, cancer or any number of other common diseases late in life, it is presumed to be caused by the job and that releases a stream of taxpayer-funded benefits. Under current law, if that employee dies from myriad ailments within 4 1/2 years after the date of injury, the family can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in survivorship benefits. In the public sector, it's far easier to make a claim than in the private sector.

Apparently, this wasn't generous enough for Assembly Speaker John Perez and the Democratic leadership. They came up with a plan that allows family members of deceased police and firefighters to claim more than $300,000 in survivorship benefits up to a year after the person's death, no matter how old that retired public-safety official may be.

The bill also specified the ailments that are considered "hero ailments" ---- deaths cause by working as a cop or firefighter. These include: hernia, pneumonia, heart trouble, cancer and leukemia, tuberculosis, blood-borne infectious diseases and certain skin infections.

As the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, summarizing arguments against the bill by local governments, explained: "Thus, any retired safety officer who dies in his or her 80s or 90s of a cancer or heart related condition would be presumed to have a work-related cause, and his or her dependents would be entitled to a death benefit. But with the incidence of cancer and heart conditions as the cause of death for many elderly people, the causation for someone 20, 30, or more years removed from service is much more debatable."

The legislation was amended to "merely" expand the time in which a benefit claim can be made to nine years after injury. It removed a couple of the presumptions from the list, but this still would have been a costly and ridiculous giveaway and provides insight into how legislators think.